Echoes
by Railey
Summary: In the situation was obvious that I was set the most likely candidate to care for the young girl... And then came the day she wanted the truth about life, one of which I wasn't going to give. So she set out on her own to find it... Sessin


In the situation was obvious that I was set the most likely candidate to care for the young girl, young woman, and becoming mother after the first rescue. I'd saved and been saved, owing the child a debt for my life I supposed with my decision of raising the orphan, making my bumbling follower watch over her on my trips out. I immediately saw the results of her thankfulness. Flower crowns, weed bouquets, games of Hide-And-Find-Me which she'd jump out before I would play along, cuddling in my mother's boa on cold winters nights. She smelled like my own kit before the year was out, assumed by all who watched our small parade pass.

Kills were messy and gruesome, blood sprayed everywhere when the animals neck was bent the wrong way, heart still pounding out life. She held her bile down fine and accustomed to raw meat sometimes, even hunted on her own when Jaken became more or less baggage to lug around. Her womans touch for herbs and life silently wondered me, a powerful Lord and master in my father's kingdom, raised on the massacre of the enemy I'd come to relish.

However, we both knew the blossom of womanhood, I'd heard some old Miko tell her the ridiculous phrase, would overcome her better judgment to travel and survive off the land thrown at her feet. Her first bleeding was a shock to her alone, I'd smelled the change a mile away, and she ran to the toad for advice, then confronted me about her newest peak in life. Looking stoically on for the few years it took her to accustom and settle in her new life, such as it was, I'd thought of her interest in newer exotically colored bouquets to gift Her Lord and dark, clouded eyes from time to time. She'd begun to think.

And then came the day she wanted the truth about life, one of which I wasn't going to give. So she set out on her own to find it, lost for only a few months from me. She returned a bit darker in skin and sharper of wit, questions rolling off her tongue of every which thing. I'd only wished I hadn't lost that imbecile. He was useful when it came to the girl's silly ponders.

Then when I heard the echo I understood her end of quest and return to her castle, my castle. Quiet as the lovers cottage I would tip toe around my girl, when I decided to call her that I don't remember. Library, kitchen, ceremonies I never taught her, the bedroom, her self whispers talked to each other, a unfamiliar thing with nothing but empty vessels for company so many years. Her breath and heart had found the company of more thoughts than one simple mind to occupy. Truth had a way of charging horns into one's gut and the ram never missed a hit, the child was a troubled one, always had been. Her clues of her external exploits were small and oh so large, the bush set on fire and from it would grow new buds.

In short and simple language she had returned pregnant.

How and when and with who hardly regarded me with much irritation as to the why, all of which was none of my business. So I kept the castle quiet and buckets clean for each morning and evening, her retching catching the staffs attention for moments then forgotten.

I must revisit my earlier statement, if not first, that shortly after conciseness was regained those many years ago and the child's yellow, strained kimono started haunting me I had made the decision of surrogate father to the child, if not future provider. Acting as such I found a human aspect of my character caring and coddling the child every step of the way, accepting the weeds and rewarding her kills with a drop of affection, enough to please her. Nights of unease I'd wander my way, always casually, to her nook of the palace and run my claws through her sticky hair, gently washing away the acidic goop of that evenings dinner and tea, then lay the girl wrapped in my mother's boa I'd come to expect around her soft human form. A despicable sort of lovely softness had enveloped a shard of my hard heart to stroke the girls skin and hair to sleep from childhood and now, a comfort for the both.

The sun rose and set a bloody red sky the day of the child's birth. Our new mother scratched for every breath, pushing the soaked fleshy scream from her bosom and to life. By evenings fall the echoes had ceased and everything became still in the compound. An exchange, however, was formed by the spirits and gods that night and granted the child death for the mother.

He made not a sound after his first cry of air, neither did.

She lay absolutely still and silent with her kid.

My shell workers began the clean up of blood and the body, washing the woman and burning the babe, all in clean ceremony. They stripped and bathed her, wrapping her up in a clean white slip gown and re-laid her in the Master chamber, my own, for easy rest. Only a single day passed while she rested till her stirring alerted me a room away. I crawled lithely into the dim lit room and carefully to view her open eyes. She glanced at the flame by her bedside. I settled relaxed a meter away on my feet, looking steady into her eyes. My face flinched and she looked away with a very silent breathy exhale.

As expected she mourned for her lost life, and not just the child but time wasted.

Finally she'd admitted to me how it happened, to ease my tenseness she added, and that she made the mistake I didn't understand, that I couldn't understand. The cold winter had pinned her up in the palace for weeks, all the thinking had nibbled away her resistance to talking. We spent the whole day in my chamber, clambering into the bed to warm her new life. She'd sit between my legs, reclined on my chest as I read or napped the cold away from her. When she dozed I'd sneak in a few feels of her abdomen, felling the echo already, before the spring melt. She whispered to me mostly, describing the village with only the most vivid of memories, the leaves in the forest, how the sake sank into her gut and filling with a false warmth her fingertips felt. He'd been handsome as men go, sneaky too, and while she submitted only after a few weeks of wooing she admitted to her mind being misplaced, back in the forest of her youth and tenderness. To feel what all other young girls had the right to feel. Stupidity of a infatuation clouded by her dark truth, her delightedness to please her Lord and the tearing of a new rip in her life she had experienced in the gross heat and wet of too late the night and strong the drink.

Her hair grew, her belly blossomed, the child she reared demanded the energies of the earth grew stronger and stronger, his golden eyes and raven hair challenging the very night and day of his world. The wind caressed him, the sun bronzed him, the earth pounded against his bare feet, the river guided him along, while we watched. Her enthusiasm and life and love erupted from his every smile, every coo but my blood lust and sharp edge lingered behind those bright molten eyes, and he became the very downfall of himself, just as his mother and father before him.

Destroying before thinking, thinking before loving. And in that way we ended up here at the very end of it all.

Common sense said to put this long ass ranting at the end:

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So, I wrote this after deciding that "Traveling Soldier" needed editing and I'm too damn lazy to do it. So, vuala! Drabbleness! Sort of going back to my roots here with Inuyasha, not totally horny for it anymore but once you love someone you never stop so there it is. I've always been a fan of this kind of pairing too, one young character, one older and experienced character sort of lost and leading at the same time. This is my AxelXRoxas obsession kicking in.

The darker sort of confusing writing is my personal style too, I'm sorry if it didn't make much sense. I had the pairing of Sesshoumaru and Rin in mind, adding Jaken to the mix too, but I'm sure anyone could insert their own dark pairing here, like Hinata and Garra or whatever, and in fact I would encourage it, have a fucking pinacolada with it. I could care less.

The echoes, if it's too confusing or your too damn dense to get it, would be the heart beat of the infant inside the girl, the second thoughts happening. It just sorta came to me when I was drabbling on and on.

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So yeah... Hope you enjoyed. If you have anything random to say about this, or unrelated I love getting presents from strange people, or would like to bitch, compliment and/or abuse me in any way, feel free. "Stick and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excite me." :D Tata!


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